


Unrepentant Flirt (The Lois Lane Remix)

by Prinzenhasserin



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-06-27 22:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15694293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/pseuds/Prinzenhasserin
Summary: Christine Everheart knows how to get her way with men in particular, and nothing is going to stand in her way.





	Unrepentant Flirt (The Lois Lane Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liesmyth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Lois Lane](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13670829) by [liesmyth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/pseuds/liesmyth). 
  * In response to a prompt by [liesmyth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/pseuds/liesmyth) in the [remixrevivalmadness2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixrevivalmadness2018) collection. 



"He's going to want to talk with me," Christine tells the bodyguard standing in front of the doors. The bodyguard glances over her, in that way men do with blonde babes who are wearing red lipstick and the fuck-me highheels. It's a deliberate act, and she thrives under the pressure, the looks—it's no different in New York's boardrooms, the Los Angeles star strip, or if she’s trying to get inside the mansion of a billionaire with too much money. People want to be taken in by her.

The person she is going to see, Tony Stark—Iron Man—just happens to be home in all three.

"Talk? That's what they're calling it now?" She can hear the reaction of the other bodyguard—there's always at least two, she knows how this works by now. She doesn't let it get to her, she doesn't even let through to her face that she heard him. People like this always assume that blonde and beautiful must also mean that she’s stupid. They should really know better in their position, the average woman Stark sleeps with is dominant as well as smart. He definitely has a type and stupid ain’t it, at all. But perhaps, that, too, is part of the facade, the version of himself he projects onto the world.

She slips into the door, sends a look up to the camera, and then enters the sacred cave of America's most brilliant engineer. "Miss Everheart," the bodiless voice of one of his creations stops her. "This is a very unorthodox entry, I thought you knew better. You're not on Mr. Stark's approved persons list. I will have to ask you to go."

"Mr. Jarvis," Christine tells the air in front of her mildly. "He's alone right now, isn't he? Exhausted, and trying not to drink his body weight in alcohol."

There's no answer, which is answer enough for Christine, long-time journalist with an eye on Tony Stark's economic success-stories, that she has the right of it. She smiles, but it's just this side of smug—a look long practised in the mirror, much like any of Tony Stark's expressions have been schooled to perfection. Christine, daughter of a 50s starlet who married a property tycoon, knows intimately what that's like. That also means she has no sympathy for his various escapades, and in her long term as the go-to person of the media corps to stalk him in ballrooms and on the press court alike, she found that he really appreciates that about her. More fool he, really.

"I can provide the... distraction, so he won't give in," she coaxes. There's really no indication that what she's doing is working, that she's making the AI see her point-of-view. "Really, he just went through the world's worst detox program, do you really want him to fall off the wagon again?"

"Mr. Stark isn't an alcoholic," the voice says, but it's reluctant, she can tell. It's amazing how a human who fails at recognising human emotion even if somebody punches him in the face witch it, can create such a delicate, empathic system. Christine knows the diffence between creator and creation, intimately, even, and yet it always is a surprise to look at the beauty of a Stark system.

Christine nods, and doesn't know if that is able to translate to the AI. "May I pass anyway?" she asks. "I could still provide a distraction."

She can feel the judgement, somehow. There's something that would pass as a sigh from an actual person, then, "Mr. Stark is at the bar, straight-through the penthouse."

"Thank you, Mr. Jarvis," she says. "I appreciate your leniency."

"I have to thank your manners, Miss Everheart. They are always such a delight after dealing with Mr. Stark."

Christine, who was pretty sure that said Mr. Stark had programmed his AI just this way for reasons she wasn't keen to analyse—but if pressed would have ascribed to the trauma of loosing most of his family in the way he had—only smiled. She didn't take anything she heard in Stark's vicinity as truth, only after researching the hell out of every tidbit she remembered. She knew—empathically—how much there could be distorted in a first hand account.

She'd been in the mansion before; usually it was more well-light and filled with other celebrities, the press, and a few scientists, but she found her way readily enough. The bar was prominent, overseeing the dusk creeping in over the sea. And there, with his back to her, sat Tony Stark curled over a glass of amber liquid. He was really too pretty for his own good.

"I should have known," Christine said loudly into the quiet of the scene.

Tony Stark turned around and looked at her. He had deep shadows under his eyes, like he had already scrubbed of the makeup he wore for the cameras— his tie was loose and Christine was tempted to strangle him with it. “What,” he said. “That I'd be a superhero? Handsome billionaire with a tragic past. How could anyone have guessed?”

She smiled at him. How could she not? He knew how charming he was, and worse of all, how to work it even if she wasn't charmed. Both were devastating. But Christine hadn't grown the hair on her teeth for nothing, could bite back if needed to, but could use her smiles for even more devastating effects.

In a different life, she might have married a billionaire like her mother, too. "That if you'd be a superhero, you wouldn't be able to stay quiet for more than five minutes about it."

Tony smiles. It's a broad grin, and yes, he's open for company. Christine doesn't let her indecision show on her face, but she didn't truly expect to get this far. She was going for a soundbite, a comment at most, but she's obviously come across him during a rather difficult time with himself...

"I should thank you, actually," he continues the conversation without her help. His voice is rough, as if he had been speaking longer than he was used to, and this had been his first full press conference since his return from Afghanistan, hadn't it been? Christine feels a smidge of remorse, but she represses it firmly. "For telling me about... I'd almost forgotten that was you. So. Thank you."

Christine blinks. This is the opposite of her expectations—to see a Tony Stark trying to be earnest. She knows how to use this to her advantage, of course, and doesn't hesistate even slightly. She slinks forward, her blouse buttoned low. "I know how you could thank me," she says, in the sultry tone her mother taught her. 

She can see his pupils going wide, and it's as satisfying as ever to provace that kind of a reaction. "Oh?" he says, and he's grinning like the cat that got the cream.

She reaches back into her small handbag, just big enough to fit her phone, recorder and lipstick. "Yes," she smiles. "So—Mr. Stark. Iron Man. There's some questions I would like to ask you."

Tony Stark groans. It's as childish as she expected of him, and yet somehow, he seems to relax. A big mistake, Christine is going to eviscerate him.

* * *

 

 

# REPENTANT FLIRT

**My Experience inside the World's Most Famous Bachelor Pad** by Christine Everheart

The moment I step into Tony Stark’s house — the tower on the Lower East Side we all learned to love because at least it didn’t have gigantic gold lettering— I step into the future. There’s no denying the electric lock on the door to the automatic entry check and the face scanner that checks your ID online in milliseconds. This is, of course, once the rigorous security check has been applied by his human bodyguards.

The future in Tony Stark’s house is not brutalist. There’s an elegant functionality to every inch of his palace—and yes, it is a palace. Unlike the apartments sold for millions of dollars on Fifth Avenue, Tony Stark has no need to cater to a client base that has less of the aestheticism with which he decorates all of his products, down to the elegant simplicity of the Stark phone. I find him lounging in a decadent ensemble of designer clothes, sleeves rolled up and crushed against his elbows…

"Tony," Pepper interrupts herself. "I don’t know what you did to Christine Everheart, but can you do it to all the reporters clamouring for an interview? What _did_ you do to her?"

Tony thinks of Christine’s curled smirk, and her strong thighs, and groans in despair. She was exactly his type and knew it, too.


End file.
